Guild Wars 2

There’s a TL:DR at the end if this post is too long for you.

Just my 2 cents on my experience thus far. I’ve owned the game since release, bought into the hype and ended up falling short of my expectations. Not saying it’s a bad game, I just don’t personally enjoy it, and it boils down to one singular reason. The lack of a challenge while leveling. This game has so many great combat mechanics! Stuns, blocks, interrupts, parries, AoE, single-target, conditions, combos. How come I’m not encouraged to actually use them? There’s basically no mobs I can’t just group up and instantly nuke down (aside from the group dynamic events). The most effective PvE leveling builds are just your classes most powerful burst AoE damage spells (and some movement speed for roaming). And that’s just fighting enemies at my level; It doesn’t even take into account all the weaker mobs I stomp with all the backtracking to lower level zones I have to do for some reason.

There are ways to address this issue, even simple ones. The best I can suggest is to have a way – either through gear, talents, food buffs, or some other system – to sacrifice damage in exchange for experience earned in combat while leveling in PvE. This would hopefully reduce the effectiveness of AoE nukes, and extend the time spent clearing a mob, which could make encounters more challenging by requiring you to use skills strategically – depending on the situation, enemy tactics, etc – thereby necessitating and rewarding more skilled play. (I say hopefully, because I’m not sure if how skills are currently balanced would mean that burst damage wouldn’t still greatly overshadow everything else) The extra EXP would offset the longer amount of time it would take to kill mobs. This has the added bonus of not interfering with the current method for leveling, allowing players that like focusing on exploration and map completion the option of still playing with an easier combat difficulty. It should effectively work as a personal difficulty setting for players.

Other solutions include content made specifically with combat challenge in mind, re-balancing skills in open world PvE (why is my Engi’s rifle so WEAK), etc; But those all would likely have a larger implication on the game as a whole, or be particularly time and resource intensive for ArenaNet to develop.

Now granted, I haven’t run any dungeons yet. Maybe the challenges lie there, and I’ll actually enjoy that. Dungeons were my favorite way to level in WoW when I played, though I’ve heard they are a significantly different experience in GW2. Also, I haven’t hit max level yet, so maybe there’s end-game PvE content that’s satisfyingly difficult.
But from all the research I’ve done, I’ve yet to find a way to have a satisfying PvE experience. Unless there’s some other way of playing the game I’ve overlooked.

Also, I know PvP is completely different. But I’m not interested in that, I don’t play MMOs for PvP.

I’m curious what the community thinks. Do you guys have the same problem? Do you have any ideas to solve it? Is there actually a way to play the game I haven’t discovered that circumvents this issue? Let me know.

TL;DR I feel GW2 game lacks a way to level in PvE that rewards skilled gameplay.

Cool.

Spvp is where its at.

They actually fixed this problem to some degree in the expansion zones, where mobs have mechanics to them that the player is expected to counter.

Sadly most player’s response to this was to whine how “hard” it was.

Crinn.7864:

They actually fixed this problem to some degree in the expansion zones, where mobs have mechanics to them that the player is expected to counter.

Sadly most player’s response to this was to whine how “hard” it was.

They did add more challenge in HoT, but the OP is commenting on challenge, “while leveling,,” for the most part.

Crinn.7864:

They actually fixed this problem to some degree in the expansion zones, where mobs have mechanics to them that the player is expected to counter.

Sadly most player’s response to this was to whine how “hard” it was.

Yet none of those enemies is truly challenging either. The only way you die is really when you get overwhelmed.

Story mode dungeons aren’t all that difficult, but you should find challenge in the explorable version of dungeons. Many in the community don’t find the explorable dungeons to be challenging enough, but fractals up the ante in difficulty (though fractals are level 80 content). Fractals have a difficulty range, going from 1 to 100, with increasingly difficult mechanics added that requires ascended gear and infusions to deal with the agony mechanic.

That’s it for the core game, but if you’re willing to invest the money in it, I suggest doing research for Heartof Thorns and seeing if that’s more your speed. It’s all level 80 content though so that is something to be considered. However if you do purchase HoT, you’ll have access to baseline more difficult zones than the max level zones within the game (as well as new and unique ways of exploring those zones). The system is however a lot more grindy than what the rest of GW2 offers. You’ll also have access to new living world story segments and 4 raid wings available for you to play through. If you purchase HoT you actually get access to a level 80 booster for a single character so you can skip the leveling and head straight to the more difficult zones.

Essentially, the leveling experience wasn’t made to be all that difficult or challenging (so that everyone can get through it) but there are certainly more difficult options in the game for you through explorable mode dungeons (story mode dungeons were made for everyone to experience so they are of a lower difficulty). the story mode is a single linear experience, but each dungeon has three explorable paths (except the final dungeon of the game, which has 4). The first dungeon I believe is level 30 so you have to be at least that level to access the dungeon. So check out the dungeons and do some research about HoT too if you feel like that could be worth checking out. I certainly won’t recommend it right off the cuff, most people have complaints about it in one way or another so check out both sides of the argument and see if you think it’s worth it.

Crinn.7864:

They actually fixed this problem to some degree in the expansion zones, where mobs have mechanics to them that the player is expected to counter.

Sadly most player’s response to this was to whine how “hard” it was.

I think this ties in to the OP’s complaint. In PvE the game does not teach you how to use your skills as you level up. The mobs at level 80 use the same skill level when attacking as lower level mobs. This leads to players afkautoattacking all through vanilla Tyria and then got unexpectedly hit with markedly harder content when they stepped into HoT. Of course people will complain if they’ve had 3 years of one type of expectation and get another level of gameplay without the game first teaching them how to use their skills in PvE.

I remember a few years back I thought I would try out a boon corruption build in PvE. So I set my skills up and went out to play. It didn’t take me long to realize that those skills were worthless in PvE, even on level 80 maps and I was better off using auto attack,

Yannir.4132:

Crinn.7864:

They actually fixed this problem to some degree in the expansion zones, where mobs have mechanics to them that the player is expected to counter.

Sadly most player’s response to this was to whine how “hard” it was.

Yet none of those enemies is truly challenging either. The only way you die is really when you get overwhelmed.

Apparently they’re challenging enough that you die when you’ve overwhelmed?

Wait…. you own the game since release (5 years ago) never did a dungeon or reached lv 80 with a character (or you mean the masteries)and/or (if you haven’t a lv 80 yet) never explored HoT maps or Orr?

Acnologia.6934:

Wait…. you own the game since release (5 years ago) never did a dungeon or reached lv 80 with a character (or you mean the masteries)and/or (if you haven’t a lv 80 yet) never explored HoT maps or Orr?

Yeah. I’m not too sure that the op’s feedback is all that… valid? Important? Useful? Relevant, really, I suppose.

GW2 is not about leveling. It is a journey that never ends. To enjoy this journey anet made lving up to max lv the easiest possible. Once you reach max lv your true journey begins. It was this way 5 years ago it will be in future (thx to god).

scorchbomb.3750:

TL;DR I feel GW2 game lacks a way to level in PvE that rewards skilled gameplay.

I’m reasonably sure it’s by design that leveling in GW2 is trivial. The skilled gameplay is important at L80, as it affects the sort of content that will be interesting or fun for each person.

You could take your lower-level characters to the Maguuma Wastes maps. They were created to be more challenging. Though, you may find you need characters at, or near, L80. Only you can decide. (You may need to purchase [either with cash, or in-game Gold] access, though.)

Good luck.

To a degree I agree. In particular the starter zones have been dumbed down to degree and that makes it really boring.

However, there’s a reason why leveling zones are easy, and that’s because if it were too challenging, then it’d be too frustrating to new players who may have even have trouble learning to even move their character. Since this was my first MMO, I had trouble even using melee weapons to hit enemies at first.

So if it’s really not challenging, then it’s clear one has already outskilled the content, and they just need to move faster. The game gives free level up tomes for this very reason. And no, it’s not needed to go through every zone, unless you want map completion. That’s probably why it feels so slow.

To me that reminds me of the numerous suggestions to make low zones harder, when they have probably forgot what it really means to be a noob. I do agree that the game should do a better job of teaching people to use skills though.

Also go do jumping puzzles.

Is there a single modern MMO with “challenging” leveling? FFXI is the last one I can think of that could be called difficult.

Play in +10 level areas with a condition build to counter the damage loss due to glances. That’s what the game was originally like before it was heavily nerfed during the betas, then again with the NPE, trait changes and better gear.

logan.5846:

Is there a single modern MMO with “challenging” leveling? FFXI is the last one I can think of that could be called difficult.

The definition of “challenging” varies from player to player, so we could talk about it all night. I’ve found Wildstar quite challenging for me, yet for many people out there it could be a piece of cake.

scorchbomb.3750:

I’m curious what the community thinks. Do you guys have the same problem? Do you have any ideas to solve it? Is there actually a way to play the game I haven’t discovered that circumvents this issue? Let me know.

Not sure if I’m going to be helpful here, but anyways…
My leveling-up is always a kittenaotic. I like to be drawn into stories and dynamic events. I’m using weapons & skills I like, not those most efficient. Sometimes I’m getting lost and wandering to some higher lever areas, where I have to run for my life. And I love it that way. Maybe the answer to your problem is not to be the best and most efficient, but to explore and enjoy the world around you.
Have fun. :)

Eirinn.4250:

logan.5846:

Is there a single modern MMO with “challenging” leveling? FFXI is the last one I can think of that could be called difficult.

The definition of “challenging” varies from player to player, so we could talk about it all night. I’ve found Wildstar quite challenging for me, yet for many people out there it could be a piece of cake.

Every game I’ve played starts from easiest things and gets harder.

Personally if things are too easy, the challenge switches to doing it as quick as possible.

Healix.5819:

Play in +10 level areas with a condition build to counter the damage loss due to glances. That’s what the game was originally like before it was heavily nerfed during the betas, then again with the NPE, trait changes and better gear.

The problem with this approach is you end up not getting usable loot, which sucks, because otherwise playing in overleveled areas is really, really fun.

Yannir.4132:

Crinn.7864:

They actually fixed this problem to some degree in the expansion zones, where mobs have mechanics to them that the player is expected to counter.

Sadly most player’s response to this was to whine how “hard” it was.

Yet none of those enemies is truly challenging either. The only way you die is really when you get overwhelmed.

he stated that they are a step up not tht they are challenging

idk man maybe lvl up until you unlock dungeons then do the solo paths in them and gring exp?

Try leveling in an area 7 levels above your level. That would be challenging.

I am not goin to quote the OP on anything, but it seems the way the OP plays is always with people. There is nothing wrong with that. If the OP wants more of a challenge he/she should do some things solo. If you can solo some champions or even good veterans or elite’s maybe the OP can see more of a challenge in playing. I personally do most content on my own. No I cannot kill champs, but do challenge myself in area’s like dragonstand against multiple foes as a thief/daredevil.

Also a great challenge is becoming good at higher levels of Fractals. Yes dungeons can be challenging at least the first couple times you do them. What makes them even more challenging is a bad or near bad team, and sometimes that is more fun than one that makes it too easy lol.

I agree if things are too easy it ends up being boring. You yourself can change that by limiting how many people you do things with where you can. Some things its a given there will be quite a few people to help, and that is great for the game. There are some bosses that do not need that or even good mobs to kill that takes skill and fewer people.

It also looks like you may not have HoT get it you will be saying omg this is too hard at first. After that it will remain hard to get around, but you will be a better player because of it.

A game that is too hard irritates most people and they quit. A game that is too easy irritates the others and they quit. It’s a balance that can be hard to hit to keep most of each type.

Wow, there’s so much good discussion here, I’ll try to reply to as much as I can.

Chyanne Waters.8719:

I am not goin to quote the OP on anything, but it seems the way the OP plays is always with people…

The only time I play with other people is when I encounter them in zones. I actually prefer, and spent most of my time, playing solo. Also, I’ve actually solo’d a few champions and elites, they just take too long to kill; and, in my experience, didn’t really necessitate a variety of mechanics or good strategies, mostly just a focus on dodging.

zealex.9410:

idk man maybe lvl up until you unlock dungeons then do the solo paths in them and gring exp?

Is that a thing? That sounds like it could be fun.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Crinn.7864:

They actually fixed this problem to some degree in the expansion zones, where mobs have mechanics to them that the player is expected to counter.

Sadly most player’s response to this was to whine how “hard” it was.

I think this ties in to the OP’s complaint. In PvE the game does not teach you how to use your skills as you level up. The mobs at level 80 use the same skill level when attacking as lower level mobs. This leads to players afkautoattacking all through vanilla Tyria and then got unexpectedly hit with markedly harder content when they stepped into HoT. Of course people will complain if they’ve had 3 years of one type of expectation and get another level of gameplay without the game first teaching them how to use their skills in PvE.

I remember a few years back I thought I would try out a boon corruption build in PvE. So I set my skills up and went out to play. It didn’t take me long to realize that those skills were worthless in PvE, even on level 80 maps and I was better off using auto attack,

This. Exactly, leveling in pretty much any RPG is supposed to create a smooth learning curve. It should be teaching you the game. Introducing mechanics at a pace that’s palatable, instead of just skipping you to max level and giving you an overwhelming deluge of stuff to figure out. That’s the whole point. It’s not just a Skinner box treadmill to stretch out content as much as possible (though that can be a secondary purpose). That’s what keeps a game from becoming a grind, that there’s novelty introduced at a rate that doesn’t outpace your learning of the mechanics already unlocked. Sure GW2 does that well with a lot of spaces to explore, but the combat doesn’t evolve at all over that time (until apparently HoT).

And to answer a bunch of people’s comments, I’d like to re-emphasize: I don’t want to make the normal leveling experience harder. I just want an option that’s rewarding for it being harder. It IS possible to reward players that prefer a challenge without punishing those that don’t.

My big issue is this; all my options for a challenge actually result in me gaining significantly less experience than if I just mindlessly killed groups of weaker enemies. The game should be incentivizing better play, to help people learn so they can be prepared for more difficult content; and then there won’t be such a steep barrier for entry to that harder content. But of course, if somebody just wants to experience the other parts of the content; environments, exploration, story, content, they should have that option, too. Not everybody cares about combat.

Good developers will create a game that lets you do both, and great developers can do that without just having a “difficulty setting” that asks you at the beginning before you even get to play the game and figure out what difficulty would be best for you.

@Scorchbomb unfortunately you won’t find that during the leveling experience in vanilla GW2. There is more rewarding and more challenging content in the game, but it’s all optional content aimed (mostly) at level 80 characters.

And this is coming from someone who genuinely likes the leveling experience. At least the first few times. Once I learned how to play through the game and achieved level 80 on a couple of characters, playing other professions didn’t seem all that different.

Anyway, I feel it’s imperative to note that the leveling experience wasn’t truly designed to have solo challenging content in it that’s as rewarding as challenging max level content is. Also, most of the max level challenging content is group content, especially considering all the expansion stuff. So that’s your answer, unfortunately. If you wish to find challenge, you’ll mostly find it at max level, not through the leveling experience.

I loved things about guild wars 2 and debating to get back into it because I subbed for the long haul in eso, I enjoy eso but the class diversity and combat is lacking compared to guild wars 2, while eso has amazing question lands, crafting, and more guild wars 2 combat and classes are superior along with the actual raid content and dynamic events, and even the world bosses are way better in gw2. Maybe I can play both but I do not know eso takes allot of investment if your into crafting.

While there are types of mobs that mimic player skills and to a certain degree reward more skilled play (taking ettins for example, you dont have to move back when they swing their club down but could practice dodging it), a complaint i saw when heart of thorns came out were new mechanics like Break Bars and using CC skills to break it that weren’t taught as we went along. We either had to learn it by accident/experimentation or be told by other players how to use it.

So I can see how there is room for improvement in terms of using non damaging skills and learning as you go. Orr was actually a good place to learn that you need condition cleanse (granted they die so fast now it doesnt matter anymore).

scorchbomb.3750:

TL;DR I feel GW2 game lacks a way to level in PvE that rewards skilled gameplay.

For PVE? That’s partly correct … you can get through most PVE by pressing 1. Where you are wrong is that the idea that lacking this game mode indicates that it’s needed or Anet tried to put it in and failed. I see nothing that convinces me that there was any attempt to put solo content in open world that would challenge even the most base players.

I think the argument here is that it’s not really necessary in modern MMO’s, or probably ever was. I don’t know too many games where leveling rewards skilled gameplay to begin with, since most games don’t want to exclude players from the most common denominator among players. I mean, imagine getting STUCK leveling at some low level, just knowing it’s the common element of the whole game. Pretty discouraging.

Honestly, the whole idea of ‘leveling’ is something I wish MMO’s would just dump. it’s a throwback and is holding devs back from creating a truly progressive open world that is limited ONLY by the player, not the game. Levels are so artificial.

Excuse me,but I call the bsOmeter has been maxed here.
There is an MMO where open world leveling is not faceroll easy?
Is there an MMO that has more challenging open world content than the HoT metas?
An MMO that has harder open world mobs and bosses?
An MMO that has more varied and extensive open world public events?
In what planet?
Maybe the op can enlighten us.

Obtena.7952:

scorchbomb.3750:

TL;DR I feel GW2 game lacks a way to level in PvE that rewards skilled gameplay.

For PVE? That’s partly correct … you can get through most PVE by pressing 1. Where you are wrong is that the idea that lacking this game mode indicates that it’s needed or Anet tried to put it in and failed. I see nothing that convinces me that there was any attempt to put solo content in open world that would challenge even the most base players.

I think the argument here is that it’s not really necessary in modern MMO’s, or probably ever was. I don’t know too many games where leveling rewards skilled gameplay to begin with, since most games don’t want to exclude players from the most common denominator among players. I mean, imagine getting STUCK leveling at some low level, just knowing it’s the common element of the whole game. Pretty discouraging.

Honestly, the whole idea of ‘leveling’ is something I wish MMO’s would just dump. it’s a throwback and is holding devs back from creating a truly progressive open world that is limited ONLY by the player, not the game. Levels are so artificial.

Pretty much all of this.

Leveling was never the main focus, it is not following the old school mmorpg ways. The game difficulty highly focus on couple of things – builds, compositions, teamwork and understanding what need to be done. Gear grind is not a big barrier like old school mmorpg, you get gears rather easily. In the entire pve, the only contents you can consider difficult will be raid and raid too will get easy once you know how to do it since it isn’t randomised, it is base on patterns. WvW is always evolving due to players against players but the slow developments have demoralized many.

I can definitively understand the OP’s feeling, the Open World PVE is very very easy. And having played it for years, I’m down to having to yolo large groups of mobs, taking on champions solo, or making other kittened self challenges/restrictions.

My last one was leveling a thief without weapons, I got to level 45 before I just got so bored I gave up.

And yeah, first time going into WvW was a shock, hadn’t learned anything about well…. most of my class, or why I’d need stun breaks, condition removal, damage vs defense, or that players might not want to stand in my ground aoes, or just wait for me to hit them with a big attack etc, the wonders of being stun-locked, etc.

The game really doesn’t teach you to actually use/play the combat system.

And my next self-challenge/restriction for leveling is going to be a toon without armor. Haven’t decided on class yet, but tempted by Guardian, low hp and dependent on heavy armor. Should be painful.

Best way to tackle this problem is to travel to Orr or Fireheart by just walking. I did something like this for my 2 last characters, and it was much more rewarding, fun and challenging to level them.

Aenaos.8160:

Excuse me,but I call the bsOmeter has been maxed here.
There is an MMO where open world leveling is not faceroll easy?
Is there an MMO that has more challenging open world content than the HoT metas?
An MMO that has harder open world mobs and bosses?
An MMO that has more varied and extensive open world public events?
In what planet?
Maybe the op can enlighten us.

Actually almost those exist in one or 2 mmo, but that imo also deppends what players preffer/likes.

Gw2 was “meant” to be a casual game, the leveling is definatley meant to appeal to a casual audience, mind you, if your looking for challenge, play Heart of Thorns.

The real difficulty curve begins there, when you literally “need” exotic gear or higher to defeat certain things or your screwed.

Raiding may be more your thing than leveling anyway, leveling is nobodies thing, its a dated, old way of progress that has no meaning anymore than an arbitary number. Frankly 80 is too many levels as it is, 20 like Gw1 would have been fine.

To each their own. I enjoy leveling characters, and have 48 across 5 accounts. I may be more old school and casual than many, though.

I enjoy creating a new toon and clearing core zones, and just made a new thief this past weekend to start doing so. For me, it makes a nice change of pace from the HoT zones.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Gw2 was “meant” to be a casual game, the leveling is definatley meant to appeal to a casual audience, mind you, if your looking for challenge, play Heart of Thorns.

Was it? The design of the game doesn’t really support that.

If it was meant to be easy then why did they go with a reflex based combat system that values fast reactions and active avoidance? Most “casual” games favor simplistic combat systems.

Also I seem recall that in the original beta there where Queensdale mobs that could one-shot lowbies if they didn’t dodge right, which was only changed after a massive amounts of negative feedback.

The reason you can’t get into the game is because the game itself lacks detail. Give it a try thought cause it’s a good game, it just has zero detail implemented into it….except the storyline….sometimes.

Given that you can level many different ways, and that GW2 was apparently designed to appeal to a very casual breed of player, it’s no surprise to me that the game does not really hand you much challenge during the leveling process if you don’t go out of your way to look for it. That said, dungeons might be a great place for you to find what you’re looking for, in terms of solo challenge.

5 years of pve is a long, long time to not set foot in a dungeon. Hell, dungeons can drop 60K or more experience at a time… I can’t imagine standard (i.e. not using stacks of xp tomes) leveling without them.

Soloing explorable paths in dungeons can offer significant challenge. In fact, you might find most of them impossible to solo (CoF p1, for instance would be mechanically impossible for you to complete, all dps aside). But even if you can’t get through the whole thing, it can be really-eye opening to deal with certain boss encounters that offer specific challenges.

I’ll use CM story mode as an example. My chronomancer can absolutely yawn her way through the first 3 bosses solo. However, the 4th boss offered a very specific challenge. Partway through that fight, 5 or so adds run in from the side, and they each have a pretty big knockback/knockdown. I discovered I had gotten a bit lazy about using continuum shift, healing on time, timing blocks a bit better, using evades/interrupts/invulnerability with greater skill, etc. It took me many tries to get through with my build (admittedly I could probably have adjusted or compromised that for easier progress), but through condi, kiting, and blocks of all kinds, I managed it.

Solo PvE challenge is definitely there. It’s just that open world is not the place to find it.

SkyShroud.2865:

Leveling was never the main focus, it is not following the old school mmorpg ways. The game difficulty highly focus on couple of things – builds, compositions, teamwork and understanding what need to be done. Gear grind is not a big barrier like old school mmorpg, you get gears rather easily. In the entire pve, the only contents you can consider difficult will be raid and raid too will get easy once you know how to do it since it isn’t randomised, it is base on patterns. WvW is always evolving due to players against players but the slow developments have demoralized many.

Where the hek do you come up with this load of lies? Leveling in rpgs is not an old outdated system lol, lol, seriously I am laughing, leveling rpgs gets you new skills and new things to unlock that change the way you play, what your trying to describe is mobas and not everyone likes having all skills unlocked that is why some mobas do not do this.

Ryou.2398:

SkyShroud.2865:

Leveling was never the main focus, it is not following the old school mmorpg ways. The game difficulty highly focus on couple of things – builds, compositions, teamwork and understanding what need to be done. Gear grind is not a big barrier like old school mmorpg, you get gears rather easily. In the entire pve, the only contents you can consider difficult will be raid and raid too will get easy once you know how to do it since it isn’t randomised, it is base on patterns. WvW is always evolving due to players against players but the slow developments have demoralized many.

Where the hek do you come up with this load of lies? Leveling in rpgs is not an old outdated system lol, lol, seriously I am laughing, leveling rpgs gets you new skills and new things to unlock that change the way you play, what your trying to describe is mobas and not everyone likes having all skills unlocked that is why some mobas do not do this.

GW2 is designed around trivializing leveling, you see it in how the game plays, you get xp for everything you do. Bunch of things that gives you a lot of XP all over, heck you get 8 levels just from map exploring the 6 cities. I’ve done a couple of 80’s just running through maps getting Waypoints, hero points, and random exploration and ignoring mobs.

You get most of your skill (slots) early, unlock most of the important features early. By level 21 you got first trait line, and 30 for elite. After that the only thing left is just a time-gate for unlocking more traitlines, hero points, and basically getting the level to 80 so you can equip exo80. The game lets you play the game at level 20-30, everything after that is just “time-gate”.

There are also several ways you can design levels to work. You could for example give ALL skills, slots, traitline slots, etc at start. So at level 1 you have everything open. But start with 0 hero points, and have to level to get more hero points to learn skills and trait lines to fill the open slots with etc.

The traditional MMORPG style of leveling is however becoming more and more outdated. People just don’t have the patience for that kind of long grinding mobs etc that MMO’s used to be about. Players have become more impatient, the older gamers no longer have time to waste killing 50 rats, and the kids with all their phones and tablets etc doesn’t have the attentionspan :p

Times are changing. Long drawn out leveling systems are most likely going to end up a relic only used in some hardcore singleplayer cRPG and jRPG games.

Miss GW1’s way to do this, I think it would have worked great in GW2. Levels 1-20 basically tutorial and unlock all the features. But give 0 hero points, and then you have to explore the world for heropoints in order to learn skills and trait lines. And perhaps get back the 1 skill point per “level” after 20.

Honestly leveling is a horrible “design”, and the older I get and more games I play, the more I absolutely hate leveling in any form in any games. Because it is basically a designed “time waste”, to artificially extend the duration of content behind “time-gates”.

Personally I’d love if I got the option to make a character, and choose to use the PVP system for the entire game. The level scaling system means I can still play the entire game somewhat.

For most, GW2 has never been about leveling, but rather Exploring the game itself. Sure at low to mid level I don’t expect to run into mobs that are too difficult for a new player to master them. Hell if I were new around level 30 and I had to figure out what exact skills to use to beat something, and I spent way more time needed to do it. I would have ended up giving up and stopped playing. The higher level you get the more you have to think about what skills to go with. Sure world bosses are a joke, but those aren’t meant to be a challenge. However you have to look at it like this. When new content is released, for the first month or so.. no one has a clue of what they are doing. After that everyone figures it out and it becomes easy for them.

That’s another thing though. If new players ask for advice on something. I just simply tell them “figure it out” Not to be a kitten or anything, but it’s help them experience the game for themselves, instead of getting their hand held. When I started out I had no clue what I was doing. The Trait system confused me like hell. I didn’t know what any of it did, I had to figure out where to go to unlock my traits. I eventually got it figured out and learned over time. However I do give advice to new players on how to make a little gold quickly so they can progress a bit easier, but I don’t tell them how things work in the game. That’s something they just have to learn on their own. And isn’t that the point of being new in a game? Being a noob starting out is one of the best times you’ll ever have in any game.

I mean sure they could have more challenging mobs, but have to think new players are going to struggle just learning the game. You get up to level 80 maps, you have frostgorge sound, and mob with skills like chill, cripple, things like that. Silverwastes, some of those mobs you have to learn to dodge their attacks, and how to counter them.. so there is that. However once you figure it out.. it isn’t challenging to you anymore. That doesn’t mean the mobs in general aren’t a challenge. It just means you have gotten better at playing.

joneirikb.7506:

Ryou.2398:

SkyShroud.2865:

Leveling was never the main focus, it is not following the old school mmorpg ways. The game difficulty highly focus on couple of things – builds, compositions, teamwork and understanding what need to be done. Gear grind is not a big barrier like old school mmorpg, you get gears rather easily. In the entire pve, the only contents you can consider difficult will be raid and raid too will get easy once you know how to do it since it isn’t randomised, it is base on patterns. WvW is always evolving due to players against players but the slow developments have demoralized many.

Where the hek do you come up with this load of lies? Leveling in rpgs is not an old outdated system lol, lol, seriously I am laughing, leveling rpgs gets you new skills and new things to unlock that change the way you play, what your trying to describe is mobas and not everyone likes having all skills unlocked that is why some mobas do not do this.

GW2 is designed around trivializing leveling, you see it in how the game plays, you get xp for everything you do. Bunch of things that gives you a lot of XP all over, heck you get 8 levels just from map exploring the 6 cities. I’ve done a couple of 80’s just running through maps getting Waypoints, hero points, and random exploration and ignoring mobs.

You get most of your skill (slots) early, unlock most of the important features early. By level 21 you got first trait line, and 30 for elite. After that the only thing left is just a time-gate for unlocking more traitlines, hero points, and basically getting the level to 80 so you can equip exo80. The game lets you play the game at level 20-30, everything after that is just “time-gate”.

There are also several ways you can design levels to work. You could for example give ALL skills, slots, traitline slots, etc at start. So at level 1 you have everything open. But start with 0 hero points, and have to level to get more hero points to learn skills and trait lines to fill the open slots with etc.

The traditional MMORPG style of leveling is however becoming more and more outdated. People just don’t have the patience for that kind of long grinding mobs etc that MMO’s used to be about. Players have become more impatient, the older gamers no longer have time to waste killing 50 rats, and the kids with all their phones and tablets etc doesn’t have the attentionspan :p

Times are changing. Long drawn out leveling systems are most likely going to end up a relic only used in some hardcore singleplayer cRPG and jRPG games.

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Miss GW1’s way to do this, I think it would have worked great in GW2. Levels 1-20 basically tutorial and unlock all the features. But give 0 hero points, and then you have to explore the world for heropoints in order to learn skills and trait lines. And perhaps get back the 1 skill point per “level” after 20.

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Honestly leveling is a horrible “design”, and the older I get and more games I play, the more I absolutely hate leveling in any form in any games. Because it is basically a designed “time waste”, to artificially extend the duration of content behind “time-gates”.

Personally I’d love if I got the option to make a character, and choose to use the PVP system for the entire game. The level scaling system means I can still play the entire game somewhat.

Your confusing bad mmorpg leveling design with old and outdated, see the thing is you need to make the grind fun enough, people are not tired of leveling systems in mmorpgs they are tried of shallow rpg leveling elements. Just because some kids with add complain about leveling does not mean it is outdated or that it is changing there are tons of mmorpgs coming out with very deep leveling systems like patheon or albion online for example your spreading some strange misinformation or your very mis inforfmed this is so far from being true.

The secret world for example had a very amazing leveling system and the fact the story was so well done and interesting for people most people loved it. The people who are complaining never experienced a good leveling system in an mmorpg, also your talking about guild wars 2 which yes I agree here its a little shallow but this could easily be fixed with an alternate advancement system but they would have to add new skills and they likely do not wish to do that.

Pifil.5193:

Acnologia.6934:

Wait…. you own the game since release (5 years ago) never did a dungeon or reached lv 80 with a character (or you mean the masteries)and/or (if you haven’t a lv 80 yet) never explored HoT maps or Orr?

Yeah. I’m not too sure that the op’s feedback is all that… valid? Important? Useful? Relevant, really, I suppose.

Actually, it is.
Here’s the thing, if the leveling curve isn’t interesting many people will jump ship. I’ve seen that a lot at release that there were quite a few of my friends that started playing say: Wow… this is actually really boring, why is there no challenge at all even in higher scaled events?

Now add to that that each zone not only has people of the respective level but with the system we have everything above that level is possible as well and even with downgrading still stronger than the average player at that level.
Yeah, it makes for a real compelling gaming experience.
And if you get to that, maybe through will to see the endgame or because you play with a friend and that keeps a certain motivation going, and start the HoT areas you get completely overwhelmed by smarter enemies that make you feel like the leveling process has begun again.

I’d actually praise the game for that except that with each new map that gets released A-Net Shows they can make better enemies.
Let’s take this further, each new expansion, they all will make the foundation, the core game, crumble more in comparison.

In my opinion the NPE should have made the game a bit harder, introduced a certain array of mechanics every 10 Levels or so to actually teach players how to play.
Instead we have no conditions under level 15 (maybe a bit higher even) but our first skill we get to show how utility skills work is a condi counter.

Ryou.2398:

Your confusing bad mmorpg leveling design with old and outdated, see the thing is you need to make the grind fun enough, people are not tired of leveling systems in mmorpgs they are tried of shallow rpg leveling elements. Just because some kids with add complain about leveling does not mean it is outdated or that it is changing there are tons of mmorpgs coming out with very deep leveling systems like patheon or albion online for example your spreading some strange misinformation or your very mis inforfmed this is so far from being true.

The secret world for example had a very amazing leveling system and the fact the story was so well done and interesting for people most people loved it. The people who are complaining never experienced a good leveling system in an mmorpg, also your talking about guild wars 2 which yes I agree here its a little shallow but this could easily be fixed with an alternate advancement system but they would have to add new skills and they likely do not wish to do that.

No… leveling is pretty much a dying concept. It’s largely been replaced by Character Builds. GW2 would be a VERY boring game if everyone had every trait and skill added to your character’s power and ability as they were unlocked – instead, the game is focused on filling the limited skill slots and trait lines, with progression added in the form of acquiring gear that complements the builds.

Instead of focusing reaching the next level of power, RPGs have started focusing on creating a fun or effective character within a given level (In MMOs, it’s always max level – and it’s why low max levels compared to abilities have become so much of a thing). In tabletop campaigns, it’s the level of the adventure.

In response to the OP, it would have been interesting if open world PvE had as an option something like a challenge mode, where a player could choose to make the mobs of their level a bit harder.

There would be 2 potential problems with that — first, that “harder” should not mean more health, more damage, more defense but that the AI plays the mobs smarter. That would take a bit of coding work. Second, it would create a problem for grouping. The whole group would have to be in challenge mode or not. you couldn’t have a mix.

A challenge mode would actually make leveling a new toon kind of interesting, but as many have pointed out, the decision by the devs in this game is that it starts at lev 80, and they’re pretty much committed to that it seems

Oneira.7691:

In response to the OP, it would have been interesting if open world PvE had as an option something like a challenge mode, where a player could choose to make the mobs of their level a bit harder.

There would be 2 potential problems with that — first, that “harder” should not mean more health, more damage, more defense but that the AI plays the mobs smarter. That would take a bit of coding work. Second, it would create a problem for grouping. The whole group would have to be in challenge mode or not. you couldn’t have a mix.

A challenge mode would actually make leveling a new toon kind of interesting, but as many have pointed out, the decision by the devs in this game is that it starts at lev 80, and they’re pretty much committed to that it seems

The thing is they would have to make Challenge Mode maps separate from normal maps, dividing the population between the 2. Like they did in GW1 but there that wasn’t a problem as the maps were always separate instances created for you and your party.

Sartharina.3542:

Ryou.2398:

Your confusing bad mmorpg leveling design with old and outdated, see the thing is you need to make the grind fun enough, people are not tired of leveling systems in mmorpgs they are tried of shallow rpg leveling elements. Just because some kids with add complain about leveling does not mean it is outdated or that it is changing there are tons of mmorpgs coming out with very deep leveling systems like patheon or albion online for example your spreading some strange misinformation or your very mis inforfmed this is so far from being true.

The secret world for example had a very amazing leveling system and the fact the story was so well done and interesting for people most people loved it. The people who are complaining never experienced a good leveling system in an mmorpg, also your talking about guild wars 2 which yes I agree here its a little shallow but this could easily be fixed with an alternate advancement system but they would have to add new skills and they likely do not wish to do that.

No… leveling is pretty much a dying concept. It’s largely been replaced by Character Builds. GW2 would be a VERY boring game if everyone had every trait and skill added to your character’s power and ability as they were unlocked – instead, the game is focused on filling the limited skill slots and trait lines, with progression added in the form of acquiring gear that complements the builds.

Instead of focusing reaching the next level of power, RPGs have started focusing on creating a fun or effective character within a given level (In MMOs, it’s always max level – and it’s why low max levels compared to abilities have become so much of a thing). In tabletop campaigns, it’s the level of the adventure.

Just stop it is far from a dying concept, just because you do not like it does not mean it is dying lol and you cannot even prove it your literally full of it and for some reason you want to convince others it is true. You have zero clue what your talking about here. Your comparing one leveling system which is very shallow to literally every other rpg if people did not like them they would not be highly rated nor would anyone be developing nothing but older style school mmorpgs which is literally what is coming out soon and that is like 5 western mmorpgs like this, not to mention more recent ones that have come out. If anything it is shallow leveling systems that are dated and no one is designing anymore.

Yannir.4132:

Oneira.7691:

In response to the OP, it would have been interesting if open world PvE had as an option something like a challenge mode, where a player could choose to make the mobs of their level a bit harder.

There would be 2 potential problems with that — first, that “harder” should not mean more health, more damage, more defense but that the AI plays the mobs smarter. That would take a bit of coding work. Second, it would create a problem for grouping. The whole group would have to be in challenge mode or not. you couldn’t have a mix.

A challenge mode would actually make leveling a new toon kind of interesting, but as many have pointed out, the decision by the devs in this game is that it starts at lev 80, and they’re pretty much committed to that it seems

The thing is they would have to make Challenge Mode maps separate from normal maps, dividing the population between the 2. Like they did in GW1 but there that wasn’t a problem as the maps were always separate instances created for you and your party.

Yes, there are 2 ways I can think of to solve this:

• Downlevel the player for some kind of boost (xp etc)
• Create a hard mode instance of the map

Both have their problems. As you both pointed out. But ANet is not going to change the difficulty of the maps, as a lot of players enjoy the low difficulty.

Hard mode instances, would split hte player base, something ANet is against, as they want as many people together on the map, new and old players, to help each others etc.

Downleveling players for rewards will create a lot of issues with players of different power levels on the same map, so 3 normal leveld, and 3 downleveled players on the same event ? Lots of problems there.

That being said, I largely wish I could play some maps alone, if for nothing else to be left to solo events and champions. It can be fun